1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for controlling image formation for printing document data with a format attached thereto, and also relates to a method and a program for printing a document. The data includes image data, text data, and graphic data produced by an application program and the like executed by a computer, for example.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, when printing out document data and the like sent from a client computer by using an image forming apparatus such as a printer or a multifunction peripheral (also referred to as “MFP”; a multifunction machine including a printer function, a scanner function, and the like), a printer driver installed in the client computer and the like are utilized. The printer driver performs a printing operation by sending, to the image forming apparatus, single page description language (PDL) data that can be interpreted and executed by the image processing apparatus, which is obtained by adding print setting information to one single document.
The print setting information, in addition to the settings for the print processing, sometimes includes settings for pre-processing and post-processing. For example, the settings for print processing including a paper size setting, a page layout setting, and a setting related to two-/one-sided printing and the settings for post-processing including a setting related to cutting of the paper, a setting related to folding, and a setting related to bookbinding can be described using job definition format (JDF) data. The JDF is defined by using an XML, and is a format in which parameters for the pre-processing, the print processing, and the post-processing can be described using previously defined tags.
In this case, a batch of the PDL data that corresponds to one single document is treated as one print job (sometimes referred to simply as a “job”). When a plurality of jobs (PDL data) is sent to the image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus processes the plurality of jobs in the order of sending of the jobs and prints the jobs, one by one.
“POD” is an abbreviation for “print on demand”, which refers to a print processing performed upon demand by a user. Under an environment of a print on demand (POD), there exist many workflows in which a plurality of different documents are printed out, in performing standardized and unified routine works, with specifying common print setting information (a “job ticket”). In other words, a job ticket is the print setting information in which the print settings are described.
A method based on such workflows is a direct print which is represented by a “hot folder”. More specifically, the direct print is a method in which a job is put into the image forming apparatus directly from a client computer without utilizing a printer driver. The job in the direct print method is constituted by document data that is represented by portable document format (PDF) data and job definition format (JDF) data. Thus, JDF data is one form of the job ticket.
The hot folder is a folder provided with a command to which the job ticket can be previously related. The folder is a node that represents one layer in a hierarchical file management system, and other folders and files can be related therein. To put it differently, the folder can store other folders and files therein.
If it is necessary to perform the settings for a plurality of job tickets, a plurality of hot folders are previously produced and prepared, and the job ticket that is different from other job tickets is related to each of the hot folders. The plurality of hot folders are used in various manners depending on the purposes of each of the jobs. In addition, the document specified by a user is put into the hot folder by a drag-and-drop operation and by a file retrieval. The hot folder is monitored by a program that implements a hot folder, by polling at a previously determined time interval. It is recognized, by the polling, that the file is put into the hot folder. When the file is put into the hot folder, the file is attached with a previously defined job ticket and is then sent to the image forming apparatus as a job (that is, a combination of document data and job ticket data).
In regard to the aforementioned, a technology has been proposed such that the document that is put into the hot folder is not repeatedly printed for every polling operation (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-316560).
Further, there are some cases where an order of printing performed by the image forming apparatus differs from an order of sending of the jobs sent from the hot folder. This is caused in relation to sending of data through a network and also to print processing performed in the image forming apparatus.
In addition, a method in which the order of printing is made to be the same as the order of sending of data has been proposed. For example, there is a method in which an order corresponding to each of the plurality of document data is registered with order management data to specify an order of printing of documents (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 04-096822).
Moreover, there is a method in which a printing attribute of the document data is provided with an order attribute, and thus, the order of printing of the documents is determined in accordance with the order attribute (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-065784).
Furthermore, in recent years, digital cameras have been popular and are widely used. In this regard, image data photographed by the digital camera is compressed in a compression format of JPEG. In the JPEG format, singular photographic data is treated as one single JPEG file. In addition, in many cases, one photograph or a plurality of photographs taken by the digital camera is printed on one single paper sheet.
In this regard also, the hot folder can also be used for printing the photographs taken by the digital camera. The document data that is put into the hot folder (by an operation such as the drag-and-drop operation) is sent to a printer, as a print job every time the document data is put into the hot folder (or every time the document data is subjected to polling).
Accordingly, when a plurality of JPEG files is selected and simultaneously put into the hot folder all together (that is, when a plurality of files is selected and the selected plurality of files are simultaneously put into the hot folder by the drag-and-drop operation), the order of printing the JPEG files is not necessarily be the same as the order of sending of the JPEG files.
This difference in the order is caused due to three reasons discussed below:                (1) A periodical retrieval method such as polling is utilized for detecting that the job is put into the hot folder, and therefore, an order cannot be determined for a plurality of jobs that are put in the folder during an interval of the periodical retrievals;        (2) The polling is performed asynchronously in relation to a timing at which the user puts the job into the hot folder, and therefore, the jobs are not necessarily sent in accordance with the order in which the jobs are put into the hot folder, even when the files are put into the hot folder file by file; and        (3) When a plurality of files are located in the hot folder, an order cannot be determined for the plurality of files. Therefore, an order of sending the files cannot be uniquely determined.        
If an order of printing documents cannot be explicitly determined, the documents may sometimes be printed in accordance with specific implicit regulation (e.g., a rule or logic), depending on a procedure of a program that implements a hot folder. However, it is difficult for the user to know the implicit regulation, and still less in this case, the user cannot change the printing order to a desired order.
In addition, the method described in each of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 04-096822 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-065784, is a method in which the printing order is previously specified before the printing is started. Therefore, it is difficult to apply the method to the hot folder with which the document data is sent to the image forming apparatus every time the document data is put into the hot folder. Moreover, in the method according to each of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 04-096822 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-065784, it is necessary for the user to specify the printing order with respect to all the documents.
As a result of the aforementioned state of the art, when a plurality of document data are simultaneously (for example, during an interval between one polling and a next polling) put into the hot folder, the user cannot specify an order of outputting the plurality of document data.
Therefore, it would be beneficial and advantageous to provide a solution which will enable a user to specify an order of outputting a plurality of jobs that is put into a hot folder and of which also allows the jobs to be outputted in the specified order.